With the fall of Saddam, many Palestinians were driven from their homes by property owners whose houses had been appropriated by Saddam. Others came under attack by resentful Iraqis.
Several Palestinians interviewed on Friday said the latest generation of violent persecution began last year. At first it was gradual: an unexplained detention here, an assassination there. But since the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22, violence against Palestinians, particularly in Baghdad, has greatly escalated, community members say.
targets
"Now any Palestinian, whether a child or an adult, thinks of himself as a target," said Ali Hussein, 66, a resident of a housing complex for poor Palestinians in Baladiyat, in eastern Baghdad.
Another Baladiyat resident, Fatma Ahmed, said her husband was dragged from his barber shop on Jan. 15 by armed men and driven away. His family found his body in a morgue earlier this month with gunshots to the head and torture wounds on his body.
Sitting in her small apartment, Ahmed presented a reporter with typed testimony to her husband's life and unexplained death. "He was known as a hard worker and serious man," the document said, "and his only crime was being Palestinian."
On March 14, the UN high commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres, sent a letter to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani expressing his concern about reports of violence against Palestinians, and "the limited capacity of the Iraqi security forces to provide effective protection," according to a spokeswoman for the refugee agency. Guterres suggested the creation of "a special protection office" in areas populated by Palestinians.
Last Sunday, 89 Palestinians from enclaves around Baghdad arrived at the Jordanian border seeking refuge. They were turned back by the Jordanian authorities, who closed the border on Monday, and they remained stranded for several days between the Iraqi and Jordanian border posts, a Jordanian government spokesman said.
On Wednesday, the Iraqi government moved them to an Iraqi camp near the border, where the UN refugee agency delivered supplies and food. Jordan reopened the border early on Thursday, according to a Jordanian spokesman.
The group is "adamant" that it does not want to remain in Iraq, according to a statement from the UN agency. "They said the killings, disappearances and hostage-taking, affecting their families, neighbors and friends, had become intolerable."
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